Government Report: Non-Lethal Weapon Program a Waste of Money

That’s the upshot of a highly critical report released last week by the U.S. Government Accountability Office and expounded upon by Wired News.

The report found that the Department of Defense’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP) has spent $386 million since it was formed in 1996, and created exactly zero useful non-lethal weapons.

For example, the Active Denial System (ADS) or “pain ray,” which focuses microwaves on a target’s skin to create intense pain without any lasting effect, does work, as several journalists found out when it zapped them during demonstrations a couple of years ago.

But it takes 16 hours for it to warm up, according to the GAO report. It weighs 9 tons. It’s so complicated it can’t be fixed in the field. After spending $55 million, the DoD decided not to deploy it overseas.

But at least the ADS is still being worked on. Two other projects were terminated after a total of $12 million had been spent.

Look we had to try. The libs were crying for the war to end, well any war to be exact, I could see us trying to do this. After all we are the most compassionate country in the world. But it didn’t work. So I say Stay Lethal. It works.
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